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Tyrant Serin
The red-fronted tyrant serin, shown with a pair of commensal strackbirds in tow, is the largest land predator anywhere on Serina 65 million years PE. Standing a little more than seven feet at the hip, adult females can reach a length of nineteen feet and weigh one and half tons. Hunting a wide variety of habitats upon South Anciska from the temperate forests to the deserts and the crashing seashore far inland to the dry savannah, they feed predominately on serestriders, picking off the old, young, and ill, but will consume almost anything they can catch, including carrion and ocean refuse. Male and female are broadly alike save for size; males are only two thirds the size of their partners. They also have more white around their eyes, with a brow arcing over the eye and in some subspecies attaching to the cheek patch. Females exhibit only a white marking on the cheek and a smaller patch under the eye. Both genders exhibit a cap of red plumage on their foreheads. Males attract mates and intimidate rivals with infrasonic courtship songs. Though inaudible to human ears these follow a similar range of sound to that of the modern canary, simply at a far lower pitch. ~~~ On the connected continents of Serina's South Anciska and Stehvlandea 65 million years PE, predatory skykes - flightless fast-running predator canaries - are still abundant and diverse. They range widely in size, from shy, hen-sized forest dwellers upwards to some of the world's largest land carnivores, though the majority fall somewhere in the middle. They may feed on insects and arthropods, smaller finches, fish, and even other large flightless birds, but always use their large beaks to deliver the killing blow. The shape of the bill can vary significantly; lanky Swordbills grab smaller animals in a straight stork-like bill and swallow them whole, while tyrant serins have a powerful crushing bite able to shatter bone. Small forest dwellers have a tweezer-like beak to pluck insects from tree trunks, while wading species spear fish with a long, thin beak suited well for stabbing. Some early skykes, which did not need to run at too fast a pace to catch the fairly slow and plodding giant canaries of the hypostecene, lost their wings entirely, but this bodyplan wasn't as suited to chasing the faster prey that would gradually evolve soon after. All species to survive to the Cryocene descend from a more basal ancestor which kept their wings and could balance better during high speed chases, and thus the majority of extant species now retain fairly developed forearms and wing plumage. Unlike the banshees, modern skykes are usually endurance hunters; rather than leap onto their prey in ambush, they run it down in the open. Though smaller skykes survive in the east, the largest and most impressive hunters are endemic to South Anciska. The grandest of all are still members of the tyrant serin group, specialist predators of other large megafauna. They kill their prey by biting into the neck and severing the spinal cord, the jugular, or the windpipe with a notched, serrated "tooth" on either side of their upper and lower jaws. Some Cryocenic tyrant serins have become veritably gigantic, reaching weights of 3,000 pounds. Lacking a proper tail like has reappeared in some of the vivas, they nonetheless do have elongated tail vertebrae that serve to lengthen the body somewhat and improve their balance - the rest, however, is dependent on their posture. As in most birds other than the vivas, the thighs are fixed forward to set their center of gravity further back, and the wings are used to steer. The giant tyrants are able to run at speeds over twenty five miles per hour - sufficient to catch the other giant birds they prey on, such as young serestriders - but it is the smaller species that really excel in this department. Certain smaller tyrant serins have specialized almost as avian cheetahs; compromising between two methods of running not normally seen in a single animal on Earth, some are able to reach extraordinary speeds of nearly seventy miles per hour in short bursts, but also to run for more extended lengths of time at slower speeds closer to thirty to forty miles per hour, depending on the circumstance and behavior of the prey species in question. Others are complete endurance hunters, chasing herds of aardgeese in packs and picking off the weak that lag behind. Category:Serina Category:Fandom Category:Carnivores Category:Birds Category:Theropods Category:Dinosaurs